Fantastic Quotes

"Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and anallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand ways" 

– Oscar Wilde

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not"

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

My wife shared these quotes with me today, which I find profound.

Pose to Pose Again and More

I am back to animating and so far I am learning what my shortcomings are and what should I do to improve myself. It is a great feeling when you know what the problem is and what could be the solution.

The biggest problem in my animations is that they look very pose to pose. The solution to this is simple! Add overlapping and not have all body parts reach the key pose at the same time. I understand this and I have added overlapping in my new animation, but it still looks pose to pose to an extent. Here are some points from my learning so far,

- Body parts reach the pose at different times and some body parts overshoot a little bit in the follow through action
- There are few times when in real life we go pose to pose.
- So overlap is good, but not all the time. Depending upon the emotion or the action we have to do partial overlapping, only few body parts overlapping. (This comes from James Baxter's notes taken by Amrit here)
- Too much overlapping makes animation feel like rag doll. It depends a lot on style of animation of course e.g. slapstick comedy needs quite a big of overlapping. But in general for a little more realistic action we have to be careful in using overlapping.
- When adding overlapping you have to think what is leading the action. Or what makes action clear and stand out. In a simple example if character is punching somebody, you want to delay arm as much as possible and have arm hit the target in the last couple of frames with bigger spacing.
*-Always push the poses for overlapping and exaggeration to find the limit where you feel that it's not too much and too obvious. If we don't push the poses to extremes sometimes overlapping is too subtle to even notice and it can make animation pose to pose and stiff.
(I think this is where my main problem is.)

So in conclusion it is important to remember that we are creating feeling of natural motion and not actually showing overlapping itself.

Finally, my own website!

I feel very excited to have my own website. I am still in the process of updating the pages with more detail and better layout. But mainly I have my demo reel up!

I want to say thank you to my lovely wife :)

http://maulik13.com

One month :)

On 13th Dec. 2008 I got married to a beautiful and a sweet girl, Ami. And today is exactly one month of our married life. Even if we got married a month ago it feels like we have been married for longer than that. That is probably because we enjoyed every little things together. It's more than 2 years since I left for my studies and today as husband and wife we stand together stronger than ever; fighting time, fighting physical distance and uncertainty of economy. I can't tell how lucky I am to have got such an amazing girl as my wife. She has inspired me to become a stronger man and made me more determined to chase my dreams. I don't hesitate to say, Ami I will marry you in all my next lives as well.

Kids: Drawing & Imagination

This is an excerpt from Mark Kennedy's post on his blog:

"if I remember correctly, it said that most kids stop drawing around age seven because that's the age when teachers and parents start to tell kids "you're drawing that cat wrong, cats don't have seven legs" and so drawing stops being fun and starts being a chore, which makes kids give it up completely. And why not give it up? Schools and parents rarely seem to put much importance on art or learning to draw, those are always the first school programs cut when budgets shrink (it seems to me, anyway) and so very few people keep drawing throughout their lives."

A very good lesson for parents. I have to keep this in mind because I will become a parent one day and I won't want my kids to go away from creativity and imagination.

Digital Puppetry Possibilities

Last quarter I did a research paper on making 3D animation more intuitive. One of the ideas I represented was related to 3D input devices replacing mouse with more efficient device(s). While researching I had found a project which was about creating a 3D mouse from traditional mouse mechanism. Here is the link to it. Neil Fraser: Hardware 3D mouse. I found this inspiring. It led me thinking into digital puppet moving which will move the character in the 3D software. Though that idea is exciting it has its own challenges. And I think there has been a lot of work done on this (esp I think ILM has used similar system on movie like Jurassic park). And motion capture can be considered a kind of digital puppetry. However what I am thinking is to make 3D animating process easier while still keeping it hand made and not automated. So the idea is to have a physical puppet which is linked to main rigging controls of the character so that the posing process becomes faster and importantly intuitive.

I was reading Keith Lango's blog where I found this article aobut Machin-X blog. I visited that blog and I was amazed at the work that was shown there. It's again inspiring to do something about physical input system to make 3D animation more intuitive. However the biggest challenge would be to make it affordable to every desktop animator.

Here is Machine-X blog.

Invaluable Notes: Randy Pausch's Lecture

Notes from Randy Pausch's Lecture, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams (link)

"wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you. When you are pissed off at somebody and you are angry at them, you just haven't given them enough time. Give them a little more time and they will almost always impress you."

How many times we respond instantly within ourselves to other people's behavior. We become angry inside instantly hearing things we don't like, we feel connected instantly if we hear something good from them. People say first impression lasts long, and that's the problem. If a person is mature and patient he/she would not create any impression from any instantaneous reactions. But if the person is not mature and patient he/she may conclude something totally opposite of the other person. Instantaneous reactions are bad, especially when you are not conscious about them.

Irony

One of my best friends called today and It was a great joy to talk to him after a long time. We always talk about life and goals and how can we get there. I wish I could write so many things from the conversation (I will as I organize them in words :)

After posting Invaluable Notes I just remembered what my friend had said to me. It is irony that I listened to the same thing in our talk and also in the video I was watching.

My friend said, he loves Mario games. Because it is just like how life is and what we should be doing. Keep jumping and keep moving. I totally agree with him. It's a very simple thing, life throws challenges, we face problems and all we have to do is deal with them, fight back and keep moving. From what Andrew Stanton said as I have quoted in previous post,

The key is momentum.

Invaluable Notes

This comes from the panel discussion "Pixar - A Human Story of Computer Animation" (link).

This was mentioned when somebody asked a question to Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton about story development process.

Following is a part of an example Brad Bird was giving to explain the story process. I am putting that simply in two lines, the essence.

Artist: "I just don't know what to do!"
Director: "Well just do something, so we can change it."

"The key thing is the momentum. In my mind creative project is a shark and do not let it die. Just go forward and use that time to make as many mistakes as you can. If you wait till you have the answers, you will probably first not have the answer and you have wasted all the time to find the real answer."
- Andrew

Invaluable Notes

This comes from a guy who has been in Animation industry for quite a long time and writes regularly about storyboarding, film making and art on his Blog. One of the greatest resource for knowledge. Here is one of the most important note I read on his Blog. Oh his name is Mark Kennedy.

This is so true!

"Simplicity is a wonderful thing and I believe simplicity lies at the heart of making something appealing. The ironic thing is how hard it is to be simple. We resist it because it seems too easy, that nobody will like our work unless we smother it in layers of complexity, and that way if it's bad, at least nobody will be able to tell because they won't be able to penetrate all of our layers of complexity!"

excerpt from his post Splashing Around.

Invaluable Notes

I have decided to post some thoughts and notes I read/hear which I feel are invaluable and will help me improve myself a lot. Hopefully it will also help other people.

I was watching Ratatouille bonus features. There was an interview with an American chef Thomas Keller. Following is a paraphrase of what he said in one of the scenes.

"It is not about the perfection, it is about the quest for perfection."

So true and ironic.

Height of laziness

I feel very sorry for not posting in one of the longest breaks. I have the lamest excuse to give, I was lazy. But I should tell that there was more to it. I did not feel motivated enough. After doing a very bad performance in last quarter (I got B in all 3 courses), I figured out that I have lost my focus and my motivation. Human mind plays tricks all the time to get you out of focus. Mine does a lot. Before the end of quarter I had decided to do a lot in this 1.5 month break time to cover my lost in the last quarter. But eventually I ended up passing my time on my laptop and movies and working on projects to earn money. I was so confused and frustrated thinking that I was wasting a lot of time. Finally I decided to take a full break from all my study and goal thinking. I just want to chill for a while without any worries of how I will reach my goals. I have decided that once my quarter starts I want to forget all worries and focus on my study real hard. I am already excited since I am going to start doing hand drawn animation and may be a character rigging class. I have also decided to manage my time well in next quarter to give enough time for my sweetheart and food (to be healthy enough to do all things). I am planning to post some of my work from the last quarter, but I dont have any work scanned or ready to post. Once I have them ready I will definitely post them.

More on failure

Success or Failure

Kumar made a very good and important point about failure.

Fear of failure

Why do we afraid of failure so much? It seems that one of the greatest fear on earth is the fear of failure. My drawing professors always say that do not be afraid to make mistakes. I totally understand it why. But sometimes I just can't help it but feel that fear for a while. I know that it does not help at all and by taking failure as a milestone for success I can become better. Life is really challenging this way; even if you know something is good or bad, you sometimes can't just do what you know you should do. It is very true that the person who can control his/her mind can do anything in this world.

My Fall quarter has started and there are lots of things happening. As usual the pressure of performing well has started to build up. I dont know if it is my own expectation or not. One more thing I realize is that we are afraid of what people would think about us or what impression would we make if we do something. Sometimes we really become conscious and concerned about our impression on others that we start feeling that fear, we start feeling the pressure. It lies in person's strength to take failure as a part of success, as a part of the journey and not the destination. This challenge will keep coming in one or the other form. I want to be free from thinking of my impression on others and my own expectations. I want to be fearless.

Life & Partner

Life is really important and so is the partner one chooses to spend the entire life with. Life is about sharing and caring. To me life does not make sense if we do not share and care. Life partner or soul mate is the person to whom one opens up his/her heart fully. And that is when the power of sharing and caring grows more and more. That is why soul mate holds a very important place and role in life.

On 14th of August I got engaged to a sweet caring girl who is my best friend, my inspiration and my heart, Ami :)

Logic vs Creativity (Left vs Right Brain)

One fundamental question that has been raised many times is can creativity be learned or practiced? Even I had this question and doubt since long time. I was worried after my first CEED result if I am creative enough or not. If I am not, I cannot move into animation or any creative field. Even today I struggle to find creative ideas, but now I understand where do they come from and I know that I can be creative, in fact anyone can be creative.

I got a kick on this thought when we were doing thumbnail studies for color theory assignment. What we had to do was to design a single motif which eventually would create a pattern. I started off with excitement since I had so many ideas, but I got only few thumbnails on my page. I was worried and thinking what to do. Our professor told us that while exploring ideas do not think of how a motif would look in the pattern or how it would fit in the pattern, whatever comes to the mind just translate it into a thumbnail. And later on after exploring ideas we can see if a particular motif will work or not and may be modify later. At once it clicked to me that what I was doing was wrong, I was going into more of logical aspects of ideas like how details will look and how they will connect and how can I literally translate my idea of fish in the net. I was more focused on details and not the whole idea. Whatever new ideas came were rejected by left brain in doing more of analysis or logical explanation. So I realized that I was not letting my right side of the brain take control.

Left and right sides of the brain have individual and separate functions. They each process different kinds of information and outputs different kinds of results. This link shows which side of the brain handles what. So simple fact is that a person who uses left side of the brain more tends to be more logical and technical, while the person using the right side of the brain more tends to be more creative and artistic. All the intuitive and random ideas come from the right side of the brain. Many times even if we get some really good ideas they do not come out because of the interference of the left side of the brain. So for people who wants to be more creative has to make their right side of the brain function more efficiently and be careful in not to let left side of the brain interfere. The book "Drawing on right side of the brain" by Betty Edwards is based on the same theory and in a way she revolutionized the way people learn drawing with this book.

So the trick is to do exercises that make your right side of the brain more active. The above book itself has many good exercises (which I have not done, but I know it has). One basic exercise I know of is to draw something without looking at it. The first drawing always comes out very ugly and you may hardly recognize it sometimes, but with practice you can get unbelievable results. Well sounds like there is a really simple solution to be more creative right? Well in my experience it's really difficult, because of the human nature and because left brain always keep coming if you already have that dominant. For me since I am coming from a computer engineering background and being a person who likes to invent algorithms, it's a really a tough job. But sometimes it really helps and it works as well. It's just that you have to be aware of it when left brain starts interfering. So whenever next time you are looking for ideas, first stop your left brain and just draw thumbnails of anything that pops in your mind. Later on you do all the analysis of ideas to see which works and which does not. So here are the steps to do something creative (IMO):
1. Explore ideas(Let the right side of the brain rock) (DONT think if a idea will work or not)
2. After gathering ideas analyze them and discuss them.
3. Find best 3 ideas out of them and compare them (more detailed analysis)
4. Select the best idea and modify if required.
5. Move to the first execution step.

For art analysis would be in terms of design principles like composition, shapes and forms, rhythm etc.

Spring semester is over!!!

Yuhoo... After so many sleepless nights and with a low average of sleeping hours, finally this exhausting quarter is over. I really enjoyed the quarter despite all the sleepless nights. Drawing for storyboarding was simply amazing and color theory made me love every color in the palette. I will be posting my projects soon when I have them photographed.

Next quarter I will be taking life drawing and I am so much looking forward to it, since I have the same professor form my storyboarding class and I am hoping to learn a lot from that class.

I also have to start working on my short film for which I need to plan really well to manage my timings. I am really ambitious about this short film and that's where I am worried, but I was thinking to make it a collaborative project on CGSociety where I could work with some really great people and learn a lot. If it does not work out I will have to shift to another short film and do this later one (by the way film is called "Battle of Backyard") . Let's see what happens :)

Great Advice

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorials/money-mouth-paper.html

This is something all dream catchers should understand and put into action! (found it from here)

If you dream...

It's not the smartest person who endures the battle and becomes a winner, but the person who stands throughout the whole journey and never gives up on his/her dreams. It's not the extra ordinary talent but the extra ordinary perseverance that takes a person to his/her dream. And one more important thing is that you have to believe in yourself. Determination and believing yourself are interwoven so I think you have to have both, one helps the other to grow . Many times I wonder what is it that makes a person shoot into the life and makes person reach goals or dreams, not everybody becomes for example Bill Gates or may be Dr.A.P.J. Kalam or Walt Disney. I question why people did not take a course to reach his/her dream! I have heard people telling this, be aware that not everybody's dreams come true. I think what they are trying to say is that you quit, you are not one of those who can succeed. It could be shocky at times, but mind of a dreamer has to be stronger than steel, firmed and determined to face anything, even failures of reaching dream. I know we humans have social life and we have responsibilities, we cant take risks. But think what if this were told to Gandhiji and he had stopped his mission or Thomas Alva Edison and he had stopped? Life goes nowhere without taking risks, life itself is risky whether you take risk or not. So why to worry about risks?

In the end I just want to say that if you dream about a goal, dream it so hard that it runs in your blood. Your veins pump the passion of your dream. And you become so strong that all the winds in the world change to your direction. You may fall but never give up on rising. It's your determination and belief in yourself that takes you till the gate. It's not an easy path for sure, but if are determined enough, nothing can stop you. (watch "October Sky" and you will know it)

I met a guy...

Being in a good college has some really good advantages. Our college arranges job fair every year bringing some of the most reputed companies and studios in the world. This time we had Blue Sky Studios, ILM, Digital Domain, Lucasarts and list goes on. I was really excited to be in the job fair, so I got ready (I used gel to keep my long hairs stick together and keep them under the ears). I knew even if I could not do anything I just wanted to talk to one studio, and that was Blue Sky studios. Wow! I was pretty excited. But when I went there, there was a long queue (of course I should expect that). But looking around other people's work and portfolios my little portfolio felt uncomfortable and so did I. But I had to talk to that lady who was sitting on the desk of Blue Sky Studios. So I kept waiting in the queue. Suddenly a boy from behind the girl who was behind me (pardon my long confusing line) told me that there is a little caterpillar on my shirt's collar. Well that was the second time I saw a similar guy on my shirt (first time it was in the morning). I guess few of them got on my backpack while was waiting for the bus in the morning. Ok so I told that boy to take it off and put it on a paper I was holding, and he did that for me. I told him to hold my place and I went out on rescue mission (that boy in the row used the word 'rescue'). And that's it, thank God that little guy got saved.

But wait! This is not about that little guy. I kept waiting in the line, few people took only few minutes few more, but now the person on the desk had changed. This person was a guy who was wearing cool shirt. (Ok I am cutting it short) Then my turn came and I shook hand with the guy and we just started talking. I took only few minutes but it was fun and I enjoyed it. So that was the story all about (boring hah?) . I met a guy from "Blue Sky Studios"! Yuhoo! :)